March 10, 2016

Hello! It's been a while since I've updated this page. It seems some of my old chemtrail debunking posts from The Vane (RIP) are making the rounds again, and lots of people are sending me lots of hate mail because I have the nerve to explain elementary science.

Let's recap: Chemtrails do not exist!

Shocking, I know! What certain folks call "chemtrails" are really contrails, which is short for condensation trails. Contrails are trails of condensed water vapor (also known as...clouds!) left behind when the hot exhaust of airplanes comes in contact with very cold and humid air in the upper atmosphere.

Depending on the humidity level, these contrails can instantly dissipate or they can linger for hours and spread out into a thin cloud deck. Contrails can also start and stop suddenly because atmospheric humidity and temperature isn't constant. The weather doesn't look exactly like a weather map. The atmosphere is an always-changing fluid. Humidity and temperature can change quickly over relatively short distances, especially along the path of an airplane flying at 600 MPH 32,000 feet above the ground.

The process that forms contrails is very similar to the reason you see your breath on a cold morning, it just involves higher levels of moisture and much more extreme differences in temperature. Why don't contrails form on the ground, they'll smugly retort. Well, if you went to Antarctica and wandered outside when conditions were just right, airplanes sitting on the ground will produce contrails because physics do not start and stop on the command of an angry Twitter egg who can't find their caps lock key.

All the "evidence" you see online that say chemtrails exist is fake. All of the videos and photographs that people circulate are either doctored or severely misrepresented—if I photoshop my face onto Chris Hemsworth's body, it does not make me a Greek god, just as sharing a photo and falsely saying it's a "chemtrail plane" doesn't provide scientific proof of these non-existent figments of your imagination. The most popular misrepresented photos these days show aircraft with extra fuel bladders inside the fuselage or water ballasts to provide an empty aircraft weight for in-air testing. In other words, people doing science, something of which you know little about.

A smattering of falsified sciencey-looking soil samples and water samples and air samples and pee samples and these samples and those samples that are published for peer review on ChemtrailTruth100%RealGovernmentCoverup dot ExposeTheIlluminati dot co dot uk dot czechrepublic dot net does not a palette of evidence make. Nor for that matter do a handful of transcripts from open mic public comment portions of town hall meetings in the weird part of California, nor do a couple of loopy politicians in Europe who introduced chemtrail legislation and launched chemtrail investigations to satisfy constituents to whom they probably owe hush money.

Worst of all, the chemtrail truthers fall victim to the scourge of circular references: Source A makes an assertion. Source B cites Source A. Source C cites Source B. Source A turns around and cites Source C as "proof" that their assertion was correct. That's how the entire business of online chemtrail activism works, and more often than not, the so-called experts have credentials that are as valid as a degree from Trump University. That's also how vaccine truthers work. And people who panic over GMOs and gluten. And people who think an array of antennas is controlled by Barack Obama to generate deadly storms over red states. And people who think the Illuminati controls the world. And people who think the moon landing was fake. And on and on.

The best thing of all is that when you call them out on this—like I am right now—the activists will accuse you of being a paid shill. Everyone who disagrees with them is doing so because they're bought and paid by The Man. Dontcha know.

There have been limited, localized experiments with cloud seeding, but cloud seeding is not your mythical "chemtrails." Saying that chemtrails exist because cloud seeding is something scientists have done is like saying the government is hiding a cure for cancer because you can get a flu shot. Oh no, I brought up vaccines—let's not whack that bag of wasps.

When you see a contrail in the sky, it's just that: a trail of condensed water vapor. The government is not spraying you with chemicals to make you sick or control the weather. They do not have the capability to do that. Nobody does. Airplanes do not even have the capacity to carry the amount of chemicals that it would take for "chemtrails" to be real. If we could control the weather, I guarantee you that some evil twit like Kim Jong-Un would have already hijacked the technology and turned Washington D.C. into an iceberg by now.

Sorry to break it to you, but life isn't an exciting science fiction novel. Elementary-level science is boring and not quite as sexy as a massive conspiracy that involves millions of people and quadrillions of gallons of mysterious chemicals, but that's how life goes. Also, Santa Claus was your parents and the Easter Bunny got busted for meth back in the 70s. Welcome to the real world, kid.

When you tell me to "look up" at the sky to see the evidence for myself, I see basic physics and meteorology in action. You should try it some day.

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